PERKINS TOWNSHIP -- A unique piece of aircraft history will fly again in the imaginations of local students who restore it to museum condition.

Industrial and electrical technology students of EHOVE Career Center will team with staff and contractors of NASA Plum Brook Station to refurbish a jet cockpit stored at the Perkins Township research facility.

It's the first aircraft component to head into the workshops at the Milan Township school.

"Our goal and focus is to create as many opportunities as we can for these students," said Matt Ehrhardt, assistant director of EHOVE. "The whole idea behind this is to expand their thinking and create new opportunities for them that they've never thought about."

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Earlier this month, Ehrhardt; instructors Dan Langdon and Chuck Oeder; and juniors Kyle Capodic of Sandusky; Reid Steiber of Monroeville; and Cody Gates and Matt Rowland, both of Bellevue, traveled to NASA Plum Brook for their first hands-on meeting with the jet.

The cockpit, the only one of its kind, is an artifact from the U.S. Navy XFV-12A Thrust Augmented Wing V/STOL Technology Demonstrator Aircraft Program, developed in Columbus at Rockwell International in the 1970s.

"One of the reasons we decided to save this thing is, it's Ohio," said Maciej "Mac" Grzegorz Zborowski, a support service contractor for NASA. "This thing is Ohio aviation heritage."

The aircraft was tested in Columbus and NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia.

"The goal of the project was to develop a supersonic aircraft that can land and take off vertically," Zborowski said.

The jet was to use the "Coanda effect," using wings with perforations and vents to direct thrust and create lift. The jet was to take off and land without using large thrust nozzles like the more famous British Harrier, which has the nickname the Jump Jet.

"This was to outperform the Harrier," Zborowski said.

The remaining piece shows the XFV-12A was built with a cockpit of an A4 Skyhawk and air intake vents from an F4 Phantom.

"It's like a Franken-jet," Zborowski said. "I've been telling people, if Buck Rogers had an airplane, this would be it."

An engine from an F14 Tomcat developed "a ton of thrust," but the plan to redirect thrust around the wings just did not perform as expected.

"As the project went on, the engineers started figuring out there are losses in the system," Zborowski said.

The XFV-12A never took off as a warplane, but it was a good learning experience for jet designers.

"What is research? It's a very nebulous term," Zborowski said. "We're trying to get the message across that just because you're getting data that you're not expecting, doesn't mean it was a failure."

In 1981, the project was canceled and the cockpit and air intakes were sliced off.

It was unclear exactly how or why it ended up in indoor and outdoor storage at NASA Plum Brook Station.

"Thankfully, someone saw fit to save the part for whatever reason," Zborowski said.

A friend working at NASA Plum Brook spotted it and wondered what it was. "It literally had a tree growing in the cockpit," Zborowski said.

They and NASA officials began brainstorming about what to do with it. Working with EHOVE was an ideal match, Zborowski said.

"I said absolutely, absolutely," Ehrhardt said. "What a great opportunity for kids."

In another stroke of luck, NASA Plum Brook has a flight simulator, complete with joystick, throttle, instrument panel and foot pedals, for an A4 Skyhawk.

It's a perfect fit, so the EHOVE students will take apart the flight simulator and use its components to rebuild the interior of the XFV-12A.

"We will be wiring it up a simulator for the cockpit so that people can sit in it and kind of get an experience of being in an airplane and what it was like," Rowland said.

The students already have visited the Military Aviation Preservation Society to see examples of restored jets and parts.

"The neat thing about this project is, we're always looking for new opportunities to challenge the students," said Oeder, an electrical technology teacher. "In today's market, today's students have to learn problem solving. This is 100 percent problem solving from the start."

The end result will be an experimental jet cockpit that is restored inside and out and ready to look at -- and climb into.

"That's what we want to hear from people that sit in it: That's awesome," Zborowski said.